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French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

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Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#41

Post by fvdessen »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #20
HideousKojima wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is what happens when you make almost the entire population dependent on the state for retirement, it makes changes and cuts difficult and limits the options the country has to adapt to changing economic, demographic, and other circumstances. Kind of like how at the start of COVID in the US there were arguments like "We can't close down schools because poor kids won't be able to get their free school lunches.…

Yes, much better to leave them to their own devices. Then the state is free to just let those inconvenient poor people die.

The guy you replied to didn't advocate to leave people to their own devices but to have a retirement system that is a healthy mix of different sources of revenue / investments rather than 100% from the state.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#42

Post by lm28469 »

incrudible wrote: post #25
lm28469 wrote: post #2

That's what you get when 60%+ of the wealth generated in the last two years went to the top 1% and you ask the bottom 80% to work two years longer to cover for an imaginary deficit fyi taxing the 40 richest people in France 2% more would cover the same amount of money as having the entire active population work 2 more years. edit: since it's not clear, I'm talking about pension related debt (the main argument of the…

Wealth was not generated, prices rose. Those are valuations, they did not come out of the pockets of the workers. A wealth tax would suppress those prices, not to mention capital flight. It just does not work. If it did, everyone would do it.

So I pay my gas twice as much as 5 years ago, the dude selling the gas gets twice as much money, but nothing changed ?

ok

http://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/27887.jpeg

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#43

Post by julienchastang »

As a side note, I like to listen to RFI or France Culture in the morning in my time zone since there are a couple of good science shows at that time (Autour de la question, La Science CQFD). Lately, though those radio stations have just been playing music as those shows are canceled during nationwide strikes in France. :-(

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#44

Post by forgetfreeman »

wskinner wrote: post #28
crmd wrote: post #4

A wealth tax (instead of income tax) is the best way to reverse the capital hoarding which is destroying modern society. Go after their assets.

Impressive to pack so many assumptions in such a short comment. - wealth tax is the best way - capital hoarding is a thing - capital hoarding is destroying modern society

Not only are these not assumptions, they're trivially proven with even the briefest of research on the subject. Capital hoarding: go look at GDP graphed against wages over the last 60 years. Wages don't go up, so all that extra productivity is going in -someone's- pocket. Capital hoarding is destroying modern society: global news media is largely controlled by 7 organizations, the international housing market has been invaded by investment funds, healthcare outcomes in the US continue to lag behind most industrialized nations worldwide despite record profits, the list goes on. It has never been harder to get a leg up (at least in the US) at any point in the last 50 years, and the percentage of US households that are living paycheck to paycheck keeps increasing year over year. Not sure what you're stanning over there but that is definitely an impressive set of blinders you've got on.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#45

Post by paganel »

Thlom wrote: post #7
crmd wrote: post #4

A wealth tax (instead of income tax) is the best way to reverse the capital hoarding which is destroying modern society. Go after their assets.

We have a tiny wealth tax in Norway, so now the richest are moving to Switzerland.

If there’s true political will one can do it, especially if you’re a country as big as France.

Let’s say Arnault, the wealthiest French guy, decides to decamp for Switzerland were the French to introduce a wealth tax, then one of the most obvious solutions would be to nationalize his assets with pennies on the dollar, introduce an “emergency societal clause” in the mix to make it more “legal”, and I can assure you that the rest of French billionaires will be happy to pay an effective tax rate of 50% (let’s say) as long as the State will still allow them to keep a nominal hold on things.

And before anyone comes in and says “nationalization is a thing that only dictators do”, the modern history of France is full of examples to the contrary. As recently as 1981 Mitterrand won the presidency by promising just that, i.e. nationalizations.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#46

Post by kwere »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #23
kwere wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe the poorer parts of society should stop trying to be overeliant on the tax levied on a minority of skilled earners (so no trust fund kids) creating welfarism/populism, breaking the fabric of society (as in ancient Rome),incentivizing emigration/delocalization of taxbase; and try to be more selfsufficient from a budget stanpoint, like having a self-funded pension system, that in France case would be increasin…

"skilled earners" here being a euphemism for inherited wealth oligarchs and trust fund kiddies, or are we pretending wage earing individuals are included in the top 1%?

most income for the state is from income tax, trust fund kids and oligarchs dont have high income tax[0] , and the wealth tax can be easily lowered by tax planning

[0]https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-france.pdf

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#47

Post by [deleted] »

lordnacho wrote: post #10

The way retirement is done was broken from the start. If you have a fixed age, you will get issues when the population pyramid changes and fewer people are around to support the retired. What the system ought to be is: 1) Everyone who can't work gets a pension/state support/whatever you want to call it. If you get run over by a car at 25, you are on this list until you die and the state supports you. It's expensive,…

[deleted]

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#48

Post by forgetfreeman »

lordnacho wrote: post #10

The way retirement is done was broken from the start. If you have a fixed age, you will get issues when the population pyramid changes and fewer people are around to support the retired. What the system ought to be is: 1) Everyone who can't work gets a pension/state support/whatever you want to call it. If you get run over by a car at 25, you are on this list until you die and the state supports you. It's expensive,…

Really? Try injecting the majority of hoarded wealth into the equation and re-run the numbers, and then tell us there aren't enough workers to support the system.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#49

Post by lm28469 »

boole1854 wrote: post #39
lm28469 wrote: post #2

That's what you get when 60%+ of the wealth generated in the last two years went to the top 1% and you ask the bottom 80% to work two years longer to cover for an imaginary deficit fyi taxing the 40 richest people in France 2% more would cover the same amount of money as having the entire active population work 2 more years. edit: since it's not clear, I'm talking about pension related debt (the main argument of the…

> fyi taxing the 40 richest people in France 2% more would cover the same amount of money as having the entire active population work 2 more years. My back-of-the-envelope calculations: Sum of wealth of top 40 richest people in France: 556 billion [1] Annual income of top 40 richest people in France, assuming 10% growth of wealth: 56 billion 2% additional tax on that income: 1 billion Size of active working populatio…

Feel free to contact oxfam: https://www.oxfamfrance.org/rapports/nouveau-rapport-la-loi-...

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#50

Post by forgetfreeman »

lm28469 wrote: post #34
forgetfreeman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't doing any better, and for the same reasons.

> the same reasons. Which reasons ? Both systems are about as opposed as you can imagine without straight up walking out of capitalism

Yes, keep going...
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